Period Drama Quotes

#1. I think some period drama can be quite alienating, but 'Downton' isn't. This is going to sound quite, um, pretentious, but someone said that it's like a soap written by a poet.

Michelle Dockery

#2. I'd love to be in a period drama, though my dream role is to be in a film with Ray Winstone and Tom Hardy.

Lauren Socha

#3. Most period drama is so earnest. A lot of it is about making yourself take seriously things you wouldn't normally.

Joe Thomas

#4. I haven't ever seen a period drama that has a fantasy element to it, that's set in London, that's as lavish as it is, and that's made for American TV.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen

#5. 'The Tudors' was ground-breaking in the sense that it did ruffle the feathers of classical historians and alter the way people did period drama at the time.

Annabelle Wallis

#6. I remain, however, fairly optimistic for the future of period drama because it's just such a popular thing.

Andrew Davies

#7. I like period drama because everyone is so restrained, but they have all these emotions raging underneath.

Jenna-Louise Coleman

#8. Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's so much a part of who I am.

Ashley Jensen

#9. I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.

Rebecca Hall

#10. One of the things the BBC does better than anyone is period drama.

David Oyelowo

#11. You don't automatically assume everyone will fall for a period drama.

Jessica Brown Findlay

#12. Everyone loves a slice of period-drama-pie, but I think the success of 'Upstairs Downstairs' is really down to the wonderful format that Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins created.

Ellie Kendrick

#13. I would love to do a serious period drama. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you'll find most comedians want to do more serious stuff, most musicians want to be comedians, and most serious actors want to be musicians.

Amy Poehler

#14. If someone said, "Would you like to do the period drama?," I'd say, "Hell, yeah! I'd love to do that!" To dig into history and do a story in some period would be great.

Steve Pink

#15. I'd like to try different genres: comedy, period drama, rom-com, action.

Nina Dobrev

#16. I would love to do a sweeping romantic period drama, like Jane Eyre. That would be my dream. It's always been my dream, as far as acting.

Chloe Sevigny

#17. What you have to understand about period drama is that it's 'history light.'

Julian Fellowes

#18. The BBC is very good at period drama - world-famous for getting the details right.

Lynne Reid Banks

#19. I want to do theatre and I want to do period drama.

Lauren Socha

#20. None of us had any idea of how successful Downton was going to be. I thought I was signing up for another period drama that had a slightly modern feel. It had a freedom about it because it was coming out of the head of Julian Fellowes. Anything could happen and generally did.

Dan Stevens

#21. I'd love to be in a period drama - that's my obsession. But being a mixed-race actress, there aren't so many roles you're right for.

Antonia Thomas

#22. When I heard that 'Dracula' was being made into a series by NBC and Carnival, I couldn't resist. I knew they would do something interesting with it. A period drama with a supernatural twist seemed like a whole lot of fun.

Jessica De Gouw

#23. I've got four piercings in my left, so we've dubbed my right one the 'period drama ear.' I have to be filmed from that side when I do emotional close-ups in 'Downton.'

Jessica Brown Findlay

#24. It is difficult to know how the Tudors actually spoke because we're going back before Shakespeare; much of the drama from that period is courtly, allegorical.

Hilary Mantel

#25. I had the training at drama school where I studied Shakespeare and Brecht and Chekov and all these period historical playwrights and I think that I responded to the material.

Orlando Bloom

#26. I love costume dramas, I love performing in them, because in a funny kind of way, you feel more free. You know about the period, you can read the books, you can see the paintings, but you've never actually going to know what it was like. You can kind of stretch those boundaries a bit.

Keira Knightley

#27. I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms.

Clive Owen

#28. I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.

Gore Verbinski

#29. I've done a lot of costume drama and theatre - the National Theatre and In fact, most of my work at the theatre, at the National Theatre anyway, was period.

Brenda Blethyn

#30. The lyrics to the single 'Survivor' are Destiny's Child's story, because we've been through a lot, ... We went through our drama with the members ... Any complications we've had in our 10-year period of time have made us closer and tighter and better.

Beyonce Knowles

#31. As soon as I see period costume, I turn off. It's like hearing drama on Radio 4.

Steve Coogan

#32. I think that period dramas just need zombies.

Lily James

#33. She often felt like she had been cast in a supporting
role with the film that was Louise. And there was more melodrama to be found there than a full-scale Merchant-Ivory period production. Tonight, she was certain, would be no exception.

Kerri Thomson

#34. Young man, the truth is what you create.

Richard Finney

#35. I've never seen myself as a documentary filmmaker. I see myself as a filmmaker, period, and I am interested in drama as well as in documentary.

Errol Morris

#36. What a moment to take the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other and watch the unfolding of the great drama of the ages. This is an exciting and thrilling time to be alive. I would not want to live in any other period.

Billy Graham

#37. - Ay! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him.
- He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? what sort of master is he?
- Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hindlegs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton.

Elizabeth Gaskell

#38. Because I had grown up with Jane Austen novels and period dramas, I was very familiar with that period and that world.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

#39. What you don't get necessarily at drama school is a gigantic mix of people. At university, there's people from every social background, and you get to go through that period of being naive and not quite sure who you're going to be.

Tom Riley

#40. You will free yourself from emotional drama by uncovering all the lies you believe in. It is a process of unlearning the lies. It is a period of cleansing, and it has nothing to do with the dream of society.

Miguel Angel Ruiz